Fighting the Good Fight
by TwinScimitars
Summary: Drizzt and his friends depart Icewind Dale and find a difficult test in an unlikely place. This story takes place immediately after the events of Passage to Dawn. I know the timing is a bit off.
1. Bruenor's Climb

Disclaimer: None of characters or places in this story beyond all the members of the Red Talon Band and the village area are my creation. They are all the work of R. A. Salvatore and the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.  
  
The stars glittered brightly this night, diamonds sparkling against a black velvet cloth. Drizzt Do'Urden lay on his back, his cloak wrapped tightly against the cutting wind. The first signs of winter were evident, and the relentless wind that gave the harsh northern land of Ice wind Dale its name carried upon it the hint of snows. Despite the quiet night, the drow was not entirely relaxed, and his enchanted scimitars lay nearby. An inattentive person in unforgiving Icewind Dale was soon a dead person. Nearby, similarly alert, was the magical panther Guenhwyvar, her head resting comfortably on her large paws.  
Drizzt had been up on the area of the mountain Kelvin's Cairn called Bruenor's Climb for several hours, enjoying the simple pleasure of the beautiful night sky. He had summoned Guenhwyvar from her home in the Astral Plane to share the beauty with her. Drizzt was now taking advantage of this quiet time to contemplate recent events.  
Wulfgar, one of his dearest friends, was returned. Drizzt and his other friends had thought Wulfgar dead in a battle against a yochlol, an evil handmaiden of the drow goddess Lolth. But the barbarian had returned to them in another battle, one against Errtu, a fearsome balor who was now banished to the Abyss. The drow that had marched against the ancient dwarven homeland of Mithril Hall had been repulsed. Yet all did not sit well with the good dark elf. The lingering pain and torment evident in Wulfgar's eyes made Drizzt acutely aware that he should be doing something for his huge friend, but he knew he could do nothing but offer support. Above all, the fear that the drow of Menzoberrenzan, Drizzt's home for the first years of his life, would somehow regroup and attack Mithril Hall again bothered the noble ranger the most. Mithril Hall was hundreds of miles away, and if the drow did decide to attack, he and his friends could do nothing to help the dwarves. Drizzt knew it was impossible. The dwarf Bruenor had slain Matron Mother Baenre, the leading force behind the assault on the hall six years ago, and the surviving dark elves had fled back to the tunnels of the Underdark. Drizzt had not heard anything of them since, not even of a surface raid, which the evil race often embarked on to slay their most hated enemies, the surface elves. The fear remained, though, lurking in the back of his mind, making him anxious to depart Icewind Dale, to find adventure so that he might forget about any lingering doubts.  
Guenhwyvar's head came off her paws then and her ears pricked. Drizzt reached for his scimitars, taking his hands back when he recognized the two arguing voices floating towards him from the trail below.  
"If ye're making me climb up here fer nothing, ye'll get it!" The first voice was that of a surly dwarf.  
"Suren we'll find him up here," the second voice, a woman's, returned.  
"Durned elf," the first voice muttered. "Should be sleeping, like a decent person."  
The people that matched the voices soon came into view, climbing towards the drow's perch. Catti-brie came first, a young and beautiful human woman, carrying her powerful bow, Taulmaril the Heartseeker. Behind her, stumping up the trail and grumbling all the way came Bruenor Battlehammer, Catti-brie's adoptive father. The tough old dwarf carried a many-notched axe and a wicked scar that ran across his face, a legacy of the terrible battles against the drow six years ago. Drizzt was again painfully reminded of the horrors his heritage had caused. He rose to meet his friends, Guenhwyvar padding along silently next to him. Catti-brie grinned when she saw him, and turned back to Bruenor "I telled ye so."  
"Where is Regis?" Drizzt asked, already knowing the answer.  
"Asleep," Catti-brie replied, and smiled again. She knew just as well as Drizzt did that their halfling friend would not give up a chance for a nap to come out in the biting cold. Icewind Dale was a far cry from the warm southern lands Regis had grown up in. "Wulfgar is asleep as well. He looked like he needed it." Drizzt nodded.  
"What're ye doing up here so late?" Bruenor asked when he joined his daughter and his friend. "We're fer leaving early tomorrow morning."  
"The stars," the drow said simply. Both Bruenor and Catti-brie looked up at the sky. The young woman marveled at the tapestry of stars above her. The stubborn dwarf snorted, showing what he thought of the whole thing, yet even he could not deny the beauty. "Nowhere else in Faerûn, except maybe the sea," Drizzt continued, "can you witness such a sight, the stars stretching towards the horizon, nothing to block your view. You feel like you can reach out and touch them." The three friends stood, caught up in the spell of the moment, until Guenhwyvar yawned loudly. Drizzt looked over to the panther. She stood serenely, several feet away, and yawned again.  
"Very well." The ranger pulled the onyx summoning figurine out of his belt pouch and placed it on the ground. "Go home, Guen. Get some rest." The panther turned to insubstantial gray mist before his eyes. The mist quickly dissipated on the wind. Drizzt turned back to his friends.  
"I fer one agree with the cat," Bruenor said. "I want some sleep in me before we start out." Catti-brie nodded in agreement.  
"Aye," Drizzt said. "Let us return to the mines to sleep a bit." With one last, longing look at the sky, the drow started after his friends. 


	2. The Red Talon Band

Far away, in a vale along the shore of the Ice Lakes, fifty miles northeast of the city of Luskan, a tiny unnamed village slumbered peacefully. Its inhabitants did not fear anything. They were far enough removed from the Spine of the World to not be bothered by the monsters of that region, and they were close enough to Luskan that many bandits avoided the place, fearing swift retribution from the city.  
The Red Talon Band harbored no such fears.  
Eram studied the village from atop the lip of the vale. It was snugly nestled between a small forest and the lakes. Wisps of smoke curled from some chimneys, fires left burning in hearths all night to ward off the encroaching winter cold. Only one street ran through the village, straight from one end to the other. The houses simply straggled in all directions outwards from that central point. However, along the edge of the village furthest from Eram, construction materials for a large hall that was apparently being built on that end lay strewn about in such a way that even from his vantage point he could tell it would be nearly impossible to run across them without tripping. In order for the inhabitants to go around the large pile, they would have to go right through the path down which Eram himself would be lying in wait. The half-elf smiled to himself. The villagers had effectively cut their only possible escape route off, unless they chose to brave the unpredictable ice of the Ice Lakes. Even if they did, they would easily be picked off by the band's archers.  
He turned back to the group of bandits that were easily sitting their horses behind him. This was his elite group. It was their job to make sure that none of the villagers escaped. Any that tried were to be cut down. Eram was not sure why this was his job. The leader of the Red Talon Band, a large and incredibly ugly human named Ulek Two-swords, was not the most forthcoming of men. He demanded absolute loyalty from those who pillaged with him, and would accept no questioning of his orders. Any man who felt he had a problem with something the huge man said got a chance to face him in a duel. Since Eram had been with the band, several had died this way. Ulek preferred to fight like a drow, with two swords instead of one. What he lacked in coordination he made up for in sheer bulk and ferocity. No one that stood against the leader ever won. The half-elf had avoided that fate by simply not voicing his opinions.  
Suddenly, a shadow loomed beside him. Eram turned to see the designated runner boy for this mission, a tall, lanky kid who had joined up with the bandits somewhere along their travels.  
"Ulek says go," the boy said, and melted away back into the bushes.  
The kid will make a good scout, at least, Eram thought, if he manages not to get himself killed. He signaled his group forward, and divided the bandits in two. One half would go to a large clearing in the forest to the east of the village, and the other would go north, to cover the end of the village with the construction materials. Eram went with the latter group. The trail was wide and easy to navigate, even on horses. The bandits were soon in position.  
A huge fireball exploded over the village, compliments of the band's wizard. Screams erupted as the villagers woke to find their homes aflame. People came staggering out of the houses, burning or not. That was the signal for Ulek and his group to sweep in. They did so in a grand fashion, the horses thundering down into the village, cutting wide swathes of destruction in their wake. Men and women and children fell before the merciless swords of the bandits. Only a very few of those who had come out of the houses still stood after that first pass. Ulek let his group dissolve as bandits went rushing into houses or to corpses to loot.  
Eram fought back a momentary wave of nausea as he watched the carnage. The half-elf had not been a particularly violent person before falling in with the Red Talon Band three months ago. This was his first raid with the band, and what he was watching right now sickened him. He was careful not to show it to the other men. Some were veterans, and avoiding the humiliation he would experience was worth the price of pretending to be interested in the spectacle.  
A man with a wicked wound across his arm came stumbling towards Eram. He stepped his horse back a pace.  
"Well, half-elf?" someone shouted from the back of the group. "Your first kill. Take it or leave it!" The other men laughed.  
The villager stopped running, cradling his arm, eyes wide in fear as Eram approached. He turned to run again and tripped over a rock in the ground, landing with a groan of pain on his injured arm. He turned over quickly as Eram slid off his horse and walked slowly over to the man, drawing his longsword as he did.  
"Please," the man whimpered, his face streaked with tears. "Please don't kill me. My family."  
"Your family is dead, or soon will be," Eram replied softly, so that the men twenty feet away could not hear. "You will also probably bleed to death long before you receive any aid. I am simply offering you a more merciful way to die."  
"Kill him already, half-elf!" Eram raised his sword and lined up the point of his blade with the man's heart. Making sure his back was turned to the bandits behind him, he closed his eyes, and plunged the sword into the man's chest. When he opened his eyes, the man's glazed eyes stared back at him.  
He did not feel the congratulatory slaps the other men gave him as they came over to loot the body. He did not take the two pieces of gold that they found in the man's pockets that they offered to him first. He did not feel much of anything. The dead man's eyes burned into him, burned into his soul. The smell of the fires in the village and the screams of the dying assaulted his senses. Eram backed away from the savage group, got back on his horse, and trotted off.  
"Where ye going?" one man called after him. Eram did not hear him.  
Being a bandit, apparently, was not as enjoyable as it seemed. 


	3. Breakfast Time

The five companions were on the road before dawn the next morning. Drizzt was far ahead of his other friends, scouting out their path. Occasionally he would drop back to talk softly to Bruenor or Catti-brie. The latter led the rest along the course Drizzt had chosen, relying on the drow to keep them away from unwelcome eyes. Behind Catti-brie was Bruenor, stumping along in his usual grumbling mood. The subject of his one-sided conversation today was the delay that the friends had experienced in leaving Icewind Dale. A very small but valuable vein of silver was discovered in one of the newly dug tunnels, and Bruenor had had to stay behind and oversee the process of extraction, as he did not trust any of the other dwarves to do it properly. He had told Drizzt and the others to leave without him and that he would catch up, but none of them would hear any of it. Thus, they had remained in the Icewind Dale mines for a week longer than they had planned.

Striding after Bruenor with his magnificent warhammer Aegis-fang slung across his back was Wulfgar. Towering over the rest of the little group, the huge barbarian remained completely silent, lost in his own inner turmoil. Regis looked upon his friend with concern. The little halfling had seen Wulfgar walk through fire and ice and shrug off physical injuries that would have felled any other man. Yet this was something Wulfgar could not hit with Aegis-fang, nor tear through with sheer strength. It was something new, something insidious. It was a doubt, a fear. Regis knew that this could destroy Wulfgar more fully than a dragon ever could. A rumbling in his stomach brought the halfling away from these dark thoughts. He hadn't eaten since a quick bite before leaving the mines, several hours ago.

"When are we stopping for breakfast?" he asked innocently.

Regis jumped as Drizzt materialized beside him. He groaned when he heard the drow say, "Not for another hour or so."

"Always thinking with yer stomach, Rumblebelly," Bruenor called back. "Always yer stomach." Chuckling, he turned his eyes to the horizon and the sun now a few handspans above it, then stopped abruptly.

"Drizzt," he said. "What do yer elf eyes see over yonder? Storm cloud, maybe?"

The dark elf turned towards where his friend was pointing. A black cloud was hovering ominously over the trees of a small forest. Drizzt noted the otherwise cloudless sky, and shook his head.

"Smoke," he said. "I'll go see what it's about." He sprinted off. Figuring this was as good a time as any, Regis plopped down on the ground and began rummaging in his pack for his breakfast. Bruenor and Catti-brie came to sit beside him, glad for a chance to rest their legs and get some food in them. Unlike the plump halfling, the two had not had anything to eat since the night before. Wulfgar remained standing, watching Drizzt slowly disappear.

"I don't like this," he said finally. "I'm going after him."

"Bah, Drizzt can take care of himself." Bruenor patted a spot of ground next to him. "Come sit, get somethin' to eat."

Wulfgar turned to face his foster father, and the fire of determination that Bruenor saw in his ice blue eyes was such a welcome respite from the haunting sadness that Bruenor immediately stepped down. "Or ye could go after the elf."

"There _is _something strange about that smoke," Catti-brie said. "I can't be sayin' fer sure, but I don't think those are cookfires."

Wulfgar did not wait to hear another word. He ran off after Drizzt. The black cloud still hung in the sky, a splotch of darkness against the clear blue sky.

"Oh well," Regis said to himself, happily munching on a piece of bread. "It's breakfast time."


End file.
